


don't get caught alone

by wynnebat



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Future Fic, Getting Together, M/M, Phone Calls & Telephones, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:29:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28254675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: Home is where the heart is, or something.
Relationships: Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 20
Kudos: 411





	don't get caught alone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Irukashi_Narukib](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irukashi_Narukib/gifts).



> Happy holidays, Irukashi_Narukib! I wish you health and happiness in the coming year, and I hope you enjoy this story ❤
> 
> Story [theme song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9We2XsVZfc) (of course).

The phone rings.

It’s not supposed to, except in rare occasions, and Stiles bobs his head to the beat for a moment. _If there's something strange in your neighborhood_ … The song is still a banger.

“Ghostbuster here,” Stiles says upon picking it up.

On the other end of the line, his assistant says, “We’re going to get sued for that one day.”

“It hasn’t happened yet,” Stiles replies. “What’s up?”

“Call for you. You know the one.”

Stiles grins. “Send it through.” He leans back in his chair, resisting the urge to kick his feet up onto his desk. Partly because he’s trying out the whole professional boss man thing here, but mostly because he trudged through a mysteriously appearing swamp this morning and brought what approximately half of it back with him.

His office is small for a network that spans the country, but the people he employs are in the field more often than not. Peacekeeping between werewolves, hunters, and a whole list of other supernatural beings can’t often be done from afar.

Stiles isn’t sixteen anymore. It’s been nearly a decade since he felt powerless in the face of everything that’s out there in this weird world. But when he hears Peter’s voice on the other end of the line, Stiles can’t help but feel that burst of nostalgia, all rosy-tinted and scarred over.

“Hello, Stiles.”

“Hello, Peter,” Stiles says in reply. It’s not the first time Peter’s called the line, but he doesn’t do it often enough for Stiles to get sick of him. “What’s your emergency?”

“I’ve been attacked. It’s a travesty.” Peter doesn’t sound particularly broken up about it. His voice is smooth, languid. Like he’s never gotten dirt under his claws, grave dirt or otherwise. “You’ll have to save me.”

“Mm-hm.” Stiles takes a look at a recent report on Beacon Hills’ supernatural activity. It’s a hotbed, as usual, but he has two agents already there.

Peter huffs. “I demand to speak to your manager.”

“You would be that type.”

“That’s offensive, Stiles. I’m hurt.”

“Physically?”

“Emotionally. My sanity struggles under the weight of this gnome infestation. I fear any day I will snap and return to my murderous ways. Your two idiots aren’t being nearly helpful enough.”

“They dealt with a former Eichen House employee causing problems just last week.” The paperwork had been more irritating than the murder. Murder, Stiles could cover up, especially with someone that far down the line of cruelty and madness. But the _paperwork_. What a bother. It was good that his team had been able to shut down Eichen House a few years ago. Stiles shudders to think of what else they could have gotten up to with more time.

“They’re minimally competent,” Peter concedes. “But they have quite poor customer service skills. Truly, Stiles. Neither of them has given proper time to my complaints.”

“Your gnome complaints.”

Peter huffs. “They ate my strawberries. I killed all the ones I could catch—”

“With your teeth?”

“Of course. I’m not a barbarian. There’s more of them out in the preserve. I’m sure they’re destroying the local ecosystem along with my strawberries.”

“They would have been eaten by rabbits anyway.”

“None would dare,” Peter replies, and Stiles can almost hear his smirk.

Abruptly, Stiles thinks it’s been too long since he’s been back to Beacon Hills. When he first left after graduating high school, he thought he would never come back, never miss it. Not with his father accepting a transfer to another county and his friends skipping town for college, work, or just because they wanted out. But that’s the thing about time—it either softens or hardens one’s perspective, and Stiles can’t deny that sometimes he thinks about his hometown. And sometimes he thinks about Peter.

With a huff of defeat, Stiles says, “Fine, I’ll ask them to deal with them. Just this once. We’re not pest control.”

“Are you sure?”

“You’re a pest,” Stiles grumbles. He clicks his pen twice before realizing he’s doing it. “Outside of the gnomes, is everything alright in the town? Is the nemeton still under control?”

“I’m handling it. There hasn’t been a resurgence in its activity in three years; for all intents and purposes, it’s back to being an unsightly tree stump in the middle of my forest.”

“Good,” Stiles says. He closes his eyes for a moment. Every time he hears about that stupid tree being dormant, it’s a relief.

“And you, Stiles?”

“Same old. I have a new tattoo.”

“I haven’t seen the old ones.”

 _Is that a request?_ Stiles means to say, then bites his tongue. This is a work call. He can be professional. He really can. Instead he says, “Leave the gnomes alone for a few days. We might be able to lure them out and take them to another location. I’ll see if anyone wants them.”

“No one will.”

Stiles barks a laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, they won’t. Thanks for calling, Peter.”

“You won’t entreat me to fill out a call quality survey?”

“Scale of one to ten.”

“Eight. There’s room for improvement. You should switch to video calls.”

“ _Goodbye_ , Peter.”

The room feels emptier when the call is over. Stiles stretches in his chair, then pulls up the latest reports on Beacon Hills. It still has more activity than he would like, but much less than it used to. The remaining Hales do a good job of keeping peace and when they need help, Stiles’ network is only a call away.

It began as a way of fixing his friends’ problems. From Isaac being chased by a rogue alpha in Boston to Lydia mentioning not being able to get in touch with other banshees to learn more about her powers, then friends of friends who would call him with questions and cries for help, then strangers.

Eventually, a call line that Stiles tongue-in-cheek calls the Ghostbusters Help Line was formed. It’s only grown over time, building in employees and resources and reputation. Stiles is pretty damn proud of his people. It’s his hope that if they do enough, the chaos that was his time in high school won’t happen to another group of teenagers.

That’s the hope, anyway. In reality, they do what they can, accept what they can’t.

Peter’s gnome problem is fixable. Hundreds of years of conflicts between weres and hunters aren’t quite so simple.

When Stiles gives a call to his two agents in Beacon Hills, they’re less than enthused about clearing out gnomes, but agree to the job. Technically, it does fall into their job description.

Within an hour, Stiles is out of the office again, on the heels of a tip of a werecoyote-hunter conflict one state over. No matter how much he groans about it sometimes, he can’t imagine having any other job.

*

A week later, Peter calls again, then again. His calls are becoming more frequent. Stiles always picks up.

 _Are you bored?_ Stiles wonders. _Is that why you call, just to kill time?_

Stiles answers the phone one day and hears, “I will go on a rampage. Don’t think I won’t.”

“Those garden gnomes are sure getting the better of you in your old age.” One heartbeat, two. Stiles gets up and closes his office door, then settles in for a long phone call. He can’t quite contain his expression. “Tell me more.”

*

His father was a workaholic before he retired. Stiles will admit to being the same. He inherited a little too much of his father’s drive and his mother’s passion, and mixed in with all that, the desire to right wrongs. He jumps in headfirst, doesn’t come out until the job is done.

It doesn’t leave a lot of time for a relationship, that’s the thing.

Stiles tried in the beginning. Then as his call volume and employee count kept expanding, his personal life dried up pretty quickly. He’s out in the field too often. His hours are all over the place. People who aren’t in the know get confused and suspicious about his job; one ex accused Stiles of some pretty unsavory dealings. Stiles can’t exactly refute it all, considering his body count started when he was a teenager. It only grew bigger as an adult. The help line is there to keep the peace, but it’s not a job without its violence.

At the end of the day, Stiles has his friends and his coworkers and his father.

And he has a charming caller, who Stiles feared once and hated once and can no longer remember how that felt. He’s never been neutral about Peter Hale. Maybe that’s the problem. All that emotion has to go somewhere.

*

The first time Stiles looks up flights to California on a whim, he closes the tab and goes back to work.

The second time, he knocks his head against his desk and says aloud, “Don’t get attached.”

From outside his office, his assistant yells, “Too late!”

The third time, Stiles takes a week off from work and books a flight. He misses a call from Peter while getting off the plane. It’s probably for the best, since Stiles has no idea what he would say.

Beacon Hills looks the same and different at the same time. There are new buildings, new stores, old streets. There’s that place where he was shot at by hunters; there’s the house where his babysitter used to live. The corner store he bought his snacks and energy drinks at closed down. The high school looks the same as it ever did. If there’s anything that stays the same, it’s Beacon Hills High, with its secret Hale lair and its oblivious teachers. A few faces look familiar as Stiles drives down the streets, not quite aimless. When he arrives at his old house, Stiles recoils at the small changes the new owners have made. Something about seeing well-tended flowers in the front yard feels wrong. It doesn’t look like the house he grew up in. The Stilinskis never had a green thumb between them.

Maybe it was better to stay all rosy-eyed and nostalgic from far away.

Stiles doesn’t stop. His car’s a rental, but it’s almost the same color as his old Jeep. He drives it along the deepest road into the preserve, where there was once one house, then a husk of one, and now there’s a different house altogether. It’s too big for one person, but Peter’s always been grandiose. Stiles parks next to Peter’s flashy car and knows that Peter can already hear him, so he doesn’t linger.

Neither does he knock on the door.

Peter’s already there.

Stiles takes a moment to evaluate Peter and gives into the fact that yeah, he’s really doing this. He takes the steps up the porch. “I’m here about those gnomes. I heard they’ve been terrorizing poor, defenseless werewolves in the region.”

Stiles doesn’t remember Peter’s smirk being so devastating.

“Why don’t you come in, Stiles?”

And so Stiles does.

He’s never stepped foot in this version of the Hale house, but bizarrely, it still feels a little like coming home. He spends a few hours walking through the preserve, rooting out the rest of the gnome infestation with Peter alongside him. Sometimes Peter takes out the claws, while other times, he looks deceptively innocent. Stiles has a gun and a work kit and experience with both.

It’s getting dark when they make it back to the house. There are lights in the windows. Stiles’ phone is silent. His caller is right here in front of him; the rest know not to call. He’s on vacation. He can do as he likes.

Peter is too close, then closer. “Why are you here, Stiles?”

Misplaced nostalgia. Loneliness. Connection. Those stupid v-necks. Stiles shakes his head, smiles. “You know why I’m here.”

Peter’s kiss isn’t a surprise. Come to think of it, neither is the feeling that grips Stiles’ heart at the kiss. Beacon Hills is one hell of a town.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm also on [Tumblr](https://wynnefic.tumblr.com/).


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